United States Geological Survey Geologists examine a section of the 25-mile Lavic Lake Fault exposed by Saturday's 7.1-magnitude Hector Mine earthquake near Ludlow, Calif., on the Twentynine Palms Marine Base ... more

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Big Ones all over the globe. A 7.0 in the Mojave. Seismologists jumping up and down and pointing at cracks in the earth. The 10-year anniversary of Loma Prieta.

It's all supposed to be a wake-up call for the Bay Area, but we reach over and jab the snooze button. Which, incidentally, is one of the century's worst inventions. ("Give me five minutes of fitful semi-sleep in which to dream-worry about the utter futility of coping with the day's pending personal disasters, starting with being five minutes behind schedule.")

Quake, schmake. If we were worried about the Big One, if we were in the slightest bit realistic about what will happen when the shift hits the fan, would we be living here?

Few people remember, but 10 years ago, Lombard Street was as straight as Jerry Falwell.

All around the bay, Hills R Us. Without 'em, the cable cars could be pulled by Chihuahuas.

We worry about earthquakes, but not as much as we worry about Muni, Steve Young's brain, whimsical public art and an owl getting mugged by a crazed football fan (I know: redundant).

(On owl man: Just his luck his neighbor is a stool pigeon. Throw the book at the guy, sure, but only if we do the same with fellows who beat their wives with 2-by-4s. Or aren't women a protected species?)

We are a few million Alfred E. Neumans, seismologically speaking. What, us worry? Yes, a big quake will be an inconvenience, but I got my cell phone, I can ring up Webvan.com and have 'em deliver some snacks and a six-pack of Jolt Cola.

We're fixing bridges to make them quake-ready, but we back off in a hurry if the repair might threaten a future brew pub, an endangered species. First things first. When the Biggie hits, we're going to need a lot of brew pubs.

I'm not in denial, I'm gearing up to be shaken down. I've got plenty of water stored up, as long as the pipe from my storage bin, the Hetch Hetchy, doesn't snap. I bought myself a tool to shut off the gas, but I'm worried that it was a waste of money. If I'm trapped in the wreckage of my house, the only way out might be for the gas explosion to blow away the rubble.

Sure, I'm concerned. I worry that the Earth is becoming irritated at all the poking and probing and digging those geologists and seismologists are doing. It's like jabbing a stick into the rump of a sleeping lion.

Besides, what a bunch of Gloomy Guses. Every new discovery brings more dire warnings. Never, "A 7.5 quake on the Hayward Fault would kill 50,000 people, but it would also make several golf courses much more interesting."

And seismologists keep finding new faults. Within five years, I predict, each and every one of us will have our very own fault. So when the Big One hits, most of us will be able to shrug and say, "It's not my fault."

My theory: The Earth's crust is like a face -- as it gets older, it gets shakier, develops more cracks, fissures, faults, slippage and slideage. And what's underneath gets crankier.

But enough about quakes, let's get back to reality. A JOGGER heard the frantic yelping of puppies Saturday afternoon, peeked through the tinted windows of the GMC SUV parked at Franklin and Vallejo, and saw a mother dog and five desperate week-old puppies.

Jogger called cops, who found the mom boxer/pit bull licking the window in a desperate plea for help. It was hot, mid-80s, and much hotter inside the black car, windows rolled up tight.

"Those dogs were cookin' big- time," says officer Jackie Riche, one of the three cops who responded. "They were almost in convulsions."

The cops busted the window, officer Daylene Tong slicing her thumb in the process, and liberated the dogs.

Five women who had stopped to check out the commotion each took a now-shivering puppy and cuddled it for 40 minutes until the animal rescue people arrived.

A few hours after the rescue, the SUV owner had not returned.

"It's a common thing," sighed Mike Holland of the PD's animal control.

The owner claimed his six dogs Saturday evening and was issued a citation that will cost him $27.

At several Bay Area Safeway stores, a yellow line has been drawn (actually painted) in the sand (actually on the pavement). Cross that line with your shopping cart and a sensor activates a mechanism in the cart that locks up the wheels.

It's clever, it makes sense, it's fair. And yet there's something sad about it. DIG HE MUST: You think cell-phoning drivers are dangerous? Mark McGuire (not Mark McGwire) was tooling along the San Mateo Bridge when he was passed at 70 mph by a white VW Golf driven by a young dude flossing his teeth vigorously, with both hands.

"At least it looked like flossing," McGuire says. "Might have been a yoga thing to combat road rage."